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Friday, December 31, 2010

Little F-----s and the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit were just released, but we won’t be seeing either of them.

Hollywood types like Barbra Streisand, who have contempt for the ordinary Americans who have made them rich (and who was in both films), loved the title of the previous film, Meet the F-----s. And their contempt was reaffirmed, when the little people made the movie a hit. Well, I haven’t seen the first F-movie, either. When I find movies with foul language on the TV, I change the channel. The only exceptions I make are for masterpieces of historic significance, such as Saving Private Ryan, though I was disappointed that Ron Howard had some unnecessary profanity in Apollo 13.

Hollywood used to be able to make movies on all sort of brutal subjects, without recourse to profanity. And the introduction and routinization of showing cursing and sex in the movies has made the entire culture not just more coarse, but more violent and immoral. Not only is one no longer permitted to speak home truths, but one is not permitted to say “No” to all sorts of immoral behavior, even in the classroom. We are told that the vulgarity and viciousness are “real” (that was rap impresarios like Russell Simmons’ line, too), but just being part of reality doesn’t make something fit for depiction on the screen. After all, we’re not permitted to depict the reality of black-on-white crime, or black racism, in general. Or girls saving themselves for marriage. And movie executives lied for years, in claiming that their refusal to make movies on Biblical themes was based on box office reality, as Mel Gibson proved, when he produced and directed The Passion of the Christ, which has gorssed over half-a-billion dollars.

So, the last thing that folks in the entertainment business are interested in is “keepin’ it real.”

On St. Patty’s Day of 2009, we saw True Grit together, which was the first time for my now ten-year-old son. When John Wayne won his Oscar for Best Actor for his over-the-top performance as Marshal Rooster Cogburn, some of his friends, like Ronald Reagan, seemed embarrassed, saying that the award had essentially been a career achievement award. But Wayne gave a marvelous performance.

I wasn’t much of a fan of Wayne’s during my childhood, because he made a bunch of clunkers, towards the end; I hadn’t seen his great pictures with the likes of John Ford; and I looked down on him for taking on a royal nickname (“Duke”). It was long after his death that I learned that when he was a boy, some firemen had named him “Duke” after his trusty Airedale, and that I saw masterpieces like The Searchers. I concluded that though there are many actors I’d place before him (Alec Guinness, Fredric March, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, et al.) Wayne had grown into a fine actor.

A critic I know would rank actors a mite differently.

A few days before Christmas, as I was walking my boy to school, I mentioned that a couple of brothers named Coen had re-made True Grit, though they denied that it was a re-make. I said of their star, “Jeff Bridges is a fine actor, but he’s no John Wayne.”

Son: “John Wayne is the greatest!”

Dad: “Well, he’s a marvelous actor, but I’d say that Fredric March was America’s greatest actor.”

Son: “Well, that’s your opinion!”

(That boy of mine knows darned well who Fredric March was! He saw him last summer in The Best Years of Our Lives, prior to which I’d had him read MacKinlay Kantor’s 268-page poem, Glory for Me, which was the basis for the picture.)

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Another day, another scandal. That’s life in the New York City public schools, which are responsible for the education of 1.1 million children. The drama that is playing out in New York is playing out in cities across America. It’s all about money, about control, about power.

In early December, as many New Yorkers prepared for the imminent arrival of Santa, they were shocked to find out that many public-school principals and teachers had been naughty indeed. Desperate to raise students’ performance on standardized tests, they deliberately led their pupils to cheat on those tests.

The constant cheating just got to be too much for Stacey Moskowitz, a reading teacher at Community Elementary School 90 in the South Bronx. In an op-ed essay in the Dec. 13, 1999, New York Daily News, Moskowitz wrote, “In an atmosphere of intimidation, the principal [Richard Wallin] and other top administrators had demanded that teachers raise scores on standardized tests by giving children the answers.”

Bearing “cheat sheets” and other evidence of criminal misconduct, in December 1997 Moskowitz had reported what she knew to New York City Board of Education investigators, who did nothing.

With the help of WCBS-TV reporter Marcia Kramer, Moskowitz eventually got through to special commissioner Edward F. Stancik. The board of education’s chief investigator, Stancik is independent of schools Chancellor Rudy Crew. In December 1999, after 17 months of digging, Stancik released his report on cheating, which resulted in the suspension of 52 teachers and administrators at 32 different schools. The report, “Cheating the Children: Educator Misconduct on Standardized Tests,” revealed the most far-reaching scandal of its type in New York City history. (Under a 1976 state law, it is a crime for a school employee to help a student cheat.)

Stancik wrote, “Some [test] proctors directed students to use scrap paper and then corrected wrong choices, others gave answers outright -- and even wrote on a child’s exam. Still others prompted students to check and change answers. Finally, even before the exam was administered, certain classes were prepared by teachers using actual questions from the test.”

But that merely was the scandal du jour. Literally. Only a few days later, Republican Gov. George Pataki’s Moreland Commission on New York City Public Schools issued its report charging systemic attendance fraud. Titled “Presumed Present: An Investigation into the Board of Education Attendance and Enrollment Systems,” the report showed that thousands of students were being marked present -- and even issued grades -- who were in fact attending private schools, attending other New York City public schools, abroad, in jail or even dead. Since the state funds the public schools based on attendance figures, the attendance fraud bilked taxpayers of as much as $100 million per year.

The teachers’ union responded to the revelations with anger. An indignant Karen Crowe, spokeswoman for Chancellor Crew, denounced the report as “pure politics.” The officials all ignored the report’s no-nonsense conclusion: “The affirmative acts required to record a student absent or late, and the issuance of class schedules and report cards, some with passing grades for phantom students, go well beyond mere mistakes or negligence. Some of these acts constitute not just violations of state and local rules and regulations, but violations of federal and state criminal statutes as well.”

Sadly, only by a fluke did the attendance fraud come to light at all. When a civil-rights group sued the state of New York, charging that it was educationally shortchanging New York City -- and thus minority -- children, the state thoroughly investigated the charges. It turns out that the city’s public schools have been getting more money than they legally are entitled to receive.

Poor and working-class parents long have known how bad the city’s public schools are, and some have sought to free their children from them.

But “educrats” and teachers-union officials have fought tooth and nail against school vouchers and charter schools that might help to improve the situation. And while claiming to speak on behalf of black and Hispanic children, civil-rights groups have studiously ignored black and Hispanic parents, more than 80 percent of whom strongly support vouchers and charter schools. Like so many Fagins, educators and activists alike have used public-school children to pick taxpayers’ pockets.

In the course of an ineffectual, four-year tenure, Crew grew as arrogant as the monopolistic system over which he presided. When in light of the school scandals Councilman Stephen Fiala, a Republican from Staten Island, called for Crew’s resignation, Crew, who is about 6 feet tall, mocked the 5-foot-6-inch Fiala to TV reporters, chuckling, “He’s too short to talk to me about that.... He can call for my resignation `til he’s taller.” Eight days later, on Dec. 23, the board of education fired Crew by a 4-3 vote.

New York City needs an independent auditor’s office, whose investigators could appear without warning at each school-district office to pore over its books. It also may need an independent testing authority. The arrest and prosecution of those caught engaging in attendance and test fraud wouldn’t hurt either. More fundamentally, the city needs a universal school-voucher program, along with the aggressive implementation of the state’s 1998 charter-school law, both of which Crew tenaciously fought.

Nicholas Stix teaches composition at the City University of New York and writes on educational and political issues from New York City.

Is your local school district racist? According to a new think-tank report, the answer is surely yes. The report, “Facing the Consequences: An Examination of Racial Discrimination in U.S. Public Schools,” published March 1 by the Oakland, Calif.-based Applied Research Council, or ARC, was coauthored by Rebecca Gordon, Terry Keleher and Libero Della Piana.

You’ve probably never heard of the Ford Foundation-supported ARC, aka ERASE (Expose Racism & Advance School Excellence), but take heed: American education is dominated by radical, racialist groups like it and by the research they produce.

The ARC/ERASE report, the recipient of a 1,000-word puff piece in the March 1 New York Times, maintained that in the 12 school districts studied, minority students and teacher applicants were the victims of vicious discrimination. The districts were in Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Miami-Dade County; Denver; Durham, N.C.; Missoula, Mont.; Providence, R.I.; Columbia, S.C.; Salem, Ore.; and San Francisco. The alleged discrimination took the form of much higher suspension and expulsion rates for black students; zero-tolerance policies that have a disparate impact on black students; fewer advanced-placement classes for black students; and proportions of black and Hispanic teachers that were lower than those of black or Hispanic students, respectively. Another form of alleged “proof” of racism was a district’s refusal to hand over the racial information the researchers demanded.

The report’s centerpiece was its “racial-justice report card,” which flunked schools that did not subordinate all of their hiring, grading and disciplinary decisions to racial quotas. It never occurred to ARC/ERASE that making people’s treatment dependent on their race or ethnicity itself is racist.

Consider teaching. In New York City, where more than 80 percent of public-school children are black or Hispanic, one-third of all active teachers have flunked the New York state certification exam three or more times. That is grounds for automatic dismissal. But when the city board of education sought to fire the incompetents, the vast majority of whom were black or Hispanic, activists cried “Racism!” and the city backed down. Since a teacher’s own academic talent is the primary determinant of his success as a teacher, these inept teachers are robbing students of an education. No wonder then that half of New York City’s 1.1 million public-school children are illiterate.

As Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom showed in their epic 1997 work, America in Black and White, things are hardly better in California. In 1996, a California judge threw out a lawsuit by 50,000 applicants for minority teaching positions who had failed the CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test). Charging racial discrimination, the plaintiffs “not only sought to dumb down or abolish the CBEST altogether; they also wanted back pay for all prospective teachers who flunked the test and additional monetary damages to compensate for psychological trauma,” the Thernstroms wrote. Not surprisingly, ARC/ERASE is campaigning to have CBEST abolished. So much for advancing school excellence. So much for black and Hispanic kids’ futures.

Suspension and expulsion rates are likewise no mystery. Black students engage in misconduct and violence at much higher rates than do their white peers. In addition to statistics, the Thernstroms cited liberal reporter Emily Sachar’s 1991 book, Shut Up and Let the Lady Teach, about the year she spent teaching at Brooklyn’s 89-percent-black Walt Whitman Intermediate School: “Many kids, she discovered, had never been taught how to sit still, how to control what they said, how to behave. Her students called her ‘c -- face,’ told her to ‘f--k off,’ spat in her face, played radios during class and threw chairs at one another.”

The education subculture is dominated by so-called fugitive and “shadow” research, which is circulated among ideologues -- often privately -- and secretly imposed at the district level by highly paid, racist (antiwhite) diversity consultants, at taxpayers’ expense.

In her 1999 book, Losing Our Language, Sandra Stotsky revealed how, in advocating for a dubious pedagogical practice, a multicultural professor of education routinely will refer to research supporting his or her position. The typically unsubstantiated supporting research will consist of editorializing and references to yet more articles lacking factual support.

In a case I unearthed, in 1996 the Oakland School Board insisted that unspecified “research” had proved that teaching in “ebonics” helped black children master standard English. No such research existed. But that didn’t stop Afrocentric professors from repeating the claim, or ARC/ ERASE from citing as support for its work the Afrocentric professors’ “research.” Similarly, in calling on March 15 for 1,000 new, bilingual-education schools, Education Secretary Richard Riley claimed that bilingual education had been proven a boon to Hispanic children’s academic success.

In fact, as Jorge Amselle of the Washington-based Center for Equal Opportunity has painstakingly documented, bilingual education has proved the greatest method ever devised to arrest language acquisition. As Stotsky found, the educational problems children are encountering are largely attributable to multiculturalism’s anti-intellectual, hate-based pedagogy. Thus, the culprits guilty of intellectually destroying a generation, and especially of harming black and Hispanic children, are those who claim to speak in their names.

This flash mob of the 80-member strong Chorus Niagara performed the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah on November 13, 2010 in Welland, Ontario which, the food court suggests, is a very non-diverse place.

Indeed, the food court is representative of the city’s 49,895 residents. According to Statistics Canada’s Census Division, as of 2005, the city of Welland had 48,895 residents, 48,050 of whom were “Not a visible minority,” i.e., 96.1 percent of the population.

“Not a visible minority“Includes respondents who reported 'Yes' to the Aboriginal identity question (Question 18) as well as respondents who were not considered to be members of a visible minority group.”

I’m sure the Canadian Indians, who are very angry these days, can’t be happy about being lumped in with the palefaces.

“Aboriginal” means,

“Aboriginal identity population“Included in the Aboriginal identity population are those persons who reported identifying with at least one Aboriginal group, that is, North American Indian, Métis or Inuit, and/or those who reported being a Treaty Indian or a Registered Indian, as defined by the Indian Act of Canada, and/or those who reported they were members of an Indian band or First Nation.”

Just to be sure that I wasn’t overlooking all those colorless people, I did a word search on the page for “white” and “Caucasian,” and got “Text not found” in both cases.

Going over the page again, I found the entry, “Aboriginal identity population 50,” which totals 1,185 people. Subtracting 1,185 from 48,050 leaves 46,865, i.e., 93.9 percent. Thus, 93.9 percent of the residents of Welland, Ontario are invisible to the folks at Statistics Canada/Census Division.

That’s a perfect expression of the management of a captive white population by a multicultural government.

Had Chorus Niagara attempted to give the same performance in a “diverse” mall, say in Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Memphis, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Rochester, Camden, Kansas City, or in or near St. Louis, they would likely have been shut down by harassment, loud disruptions, and violence. You can have “diversity,” or you can have beautiful, exhilarating, yet gentle moments like this.

And while Wikipedia, or as I call it, The Pretend Encyclopedia, has an entry on the Carr brothers' crimes, whenever an editor has posted pictures of the respective victims and perpetrators, censors have vigilantly deleted them. One censor made the following complaint on the entry's talk page:

Black Profiling on this page
the first thing you see when you come to this page is two BLACK men. this is misleading because it makes people think that ALL blacks commit massacres. pleas fix the page with a better picture that doesnt make people thing black people commit massacres.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.24.236.113 (talk • contribs)

* * *

Wikipedia’s censors make a point of displaying photographs of heinous white criminals such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Rader, and of the black victims of heinous white criminals; e.g., they have a picture of James Byrd Jr., who was dragged to death in Texas by white racists Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and John William King.

Kirkwood Director of Public Works Kenneth Yost and Mayor Mike Swoboda.

The entry for the Kirkwood Massacre, in which black racist Charles “Cookie” Thornton shot seven whites, killing five instantly (one died seven months later, primarily from the effects of his wounds, though he also suffered from cancer), wounded another man, and tried to kill an eighth, has no photographs of the black murderer or his white victims. Instead, the entry has photographs of limited relevance of police cars and of firemen putting up purple memorial bunting. Thornton’s white murder victims were KPD Officer William Biggs KPD Officer Tom Ballman, Public Works Director Kenneth Yost, Councilman Michael H.T. Lynch, Councilwoman Connie Karr, and Mayor Mike Swoboda (who died seven months later). Thornton wounded reporter Todd Smith.

Racist mass-murderer Charles Thornton.

Although the Wikipedia article now has a wealth of information about Thornton and his crimes, it has been blackwashed. No mention is made of his victims’ race, or of the blacks from his community who celebrated his mass murder, or of his transparently racist motivation.

The entry also contains unfounded allegations constituting a conspiracy theory from a blog entry by a preacher that sought to rationalize Thornton’s carnage. Note that Wikipedia’s censors routinely denounce as unacceptable and delete quotations and citations from, and links to blog entries, when the blogs are by people whom they deem their political enemies.

Finally, the censors thoroughly mislead readers by listing “similar earlier case[s]” that are not at all similar, such as Dan White’s murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Councilman Harvey Milk, and the assassination of New York City Councilman James E. Davis (who, by the way, was black, and was murdered by a black man).

A perusal of the talk page will leave no doubt as to the racial character of the massacre, including myths spread all over the Internet at the time by a racist black defender of the killer.

The entry for the racist massacre perpetrated at Hartford Distributors in Connecticut on August 3 by black shooter Omar Thornton not only contains no photographs, but does not so much as name any of the eight whites that Thornton murdered, or the man whom Thornton wounded. Much of the entry is given over to reciting the unfounded charges by the killer's family and girlfriend that he was a victim of racism, and the victims' relatives and friends rejection of that charge. Nowhere did the entry quote anyone arguing that the mass-murdering Thornton was the real racist.

The entry for the Zebra Murders, the racist serial murder campaign, in which the Nation of Islam murdered anywhere from 70 to 270 whites in California alone during the early 1970s, likewise has no photographs, and leftist enforcers such as “Doug Weller” and “Ruy Lopez” have censored almost all of the information about the murders’ racial character.

At present, the entry on the Knoxville Horror contains a picture of the white victims, Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, but the censors controlling the entry have immediately removed all photographs of the since convicted, racist black perpetrators, Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman, and their accessory after the fact, Eric Boyd. The censors have come up with such fantastic, fictional rationalizations for their refusal to permit any pictures of the assailants that they deserve an entry of their own.

The only white crime victim I could find whose picture was shown, along with those of his killers was Matthew Shepard, but that was because Shepard was a homosexual, and his killers, Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney, were white heterosexuals whom homosexual activists and their heterosexual allies had portrayed as having committed a “hate crime,” in order to get unconstitutional “hate crime legislation” passed at the state and federal levels.

Conversely, while the entry for Jesse Dirkhising, the 13-year-old heterosexual boy who was gang-raped and murdered by homosexuals David Carpenter and Joshua Brown contains a picture of the victim, there are no pictures of his homosexual killers.

In the entry for the Duke Rape Hoax, Wikipedia’s racist enforcers displayed photographs of the three falsely accused white victims for one year, but have always immediately censored the photograph of the black criminal false accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum.

Heroes of the American Left, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, have destroyed the best hope for ridding Zimbabwe of madman Robert Mugabe by releasing U.S. State Department cables of communications between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the leading opponent of Mugabe, and U.S. and E.U. officials, in which Tsvangirai secretly expressed support for sanctions against the brutal Mugabe regime as the only way to establish democracy in Zimbabwe.

As reported by Christopher Albon, the result of the leak of the cable has been to enable Mugabe to continue his reign of terror and to put the opposition leader's life at risk:

“The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it's unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009….”

Perhaps all the people raising money for Assange and Manning will raise money for Tsvangari, not that it would do much good when Mugabe's thugs come calling in the middle of the night.

The blood of the Zimbabwe people, and the terror they will endure, are on the hands of Manning, Assange, and their supporters.

Bradley Manning is the “Army intelligence analyst and angry gay” (Ann Coulter) who, when he found himself in "an awkward place" both "emotionally and psychologically" (his words), he leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to Assange, the anti-American proprietor of Wikileaks. Coulter called Manning, the “poster boy for ‘don't ask, don't tell,’” but of course, that was before the lame-duck Congress passed The Forced Homosexualization of the Military Act.Manning is currently in a military prison at Quantico, Virginia.

Assange is currently in jail in Sweden, awaiting prosecution on charges of having raped two Swedish women. By Assange’s “victims” own admission, they’d had consensual sex with him, but a few days later, decided they’d like to press charges against him. Twenty years ago in America, date rape hoaxes were encapsulated in the phrase, “the morning after.” In today’s Sweden, it’s “the week after.”

Meanwhile, Assange has so far gotten away with raping hundreds of millions of loyal Americans.

It’s during times like these that I miss Jack Kennedy the most. If this happened on JFK’s watch, he would have dispatched assassins to “liquidate” Manning and Assange “with extreme prejudice.”

Meanwhile, the left is torn between lionizing Assange as a hero for destroying American diplomacy, or as a “rapist” for having merely consensual sex with women, since for feminists such as Feministe’s Jill Fillipovic (who, by the way, is a practicing liar), if a woman consents to have sex with a man, but the consent is insufficiently enthusiastic, and he neglects to formally request and receive repeated, Antioch-style consent anew at every step of the way, it’s still “rape.” Presumably, if the man is black, Hispanic, or Moslem, he can do as he wishes with the wench.

So, there you have it: Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and some of their friends.

In those days, Boston was seen as a racist city. Russell himself once called it a “flea market of racism.” In fact, Russell experienced so much racially-motivated hatred Sports Illustrated once quoted him as saying, “I dislike most white people because they are people… I like most blacks because I am black.” When he left Boston, Russell claimed the city’s media was corrupt and racist. He couldn’t even accept his fans’ adoration; he felt the white folks who asked for his autograph only liked him because he played basketball well. If he couldn’t block shots at a phenomenal rate, Russell felt, the same fans clamoring for his signature would have seen him as just another black man….

I’m not here to impart blame on either the city or Russell. The city was wrong for judging black people and treating Russell poorly.

King does not provide a single example of Bostonians treating Russell badly. On the contrary, the only example he gives took place in Kentucky. Meanwhile, he speaks vaguely of Russell abusing adoring Boston fans, but censors himself from recounting Russell’s unforgivable racism towards white children.

And Russell’s own words, which King indirectly quotes, are the most damning indictment I can think of, of Russell’s racism: Why should fans have “clamor[ed] for his signature,” if he hadn’t been an incredible player? How did it that make them racist? The implication is that in order for them to prove to him that they weren’t racist, they would have had to walk up to every black man on the street who had no basketball talent, and ask him for his signature!

What such “logic,” or lack thereof really means is that no matter how well white fans treated Russell, he was going to be racist towards them, and rationalize his own racism by projecting it onto them.

And try and make sense out of that “I dislike most white people…” quote. The online New World Encyclopedia offers the following explanation:

Russell's thinking became increasingly militant, so far that he was quoted in a 1963 Sports Illustrated interview with the words: "I dislike most white people because they are people... I like most blacks because I am black," expressing that "human" was a negative trait and "black" was a positive trait which were mutually exclusive.[52] However, when his white Celtics teammate Frank Ramsey asked whether he hated him, Russell claimed to be misquoted, but few believed it.[52] Also, [author John] Taylor remarks that Russell overlooked that his career was only made possible by the white people who were proven anti-racists, namely his white high school coach George Powles (the person who encouraged him to play basketball), his white college coach Phil Woolpert (who integrated USF basketball), white Celtics coach Red Auerbach (who is universally regarded as an anti-racist pioneer and made him the first black NBA coach), and white Celtics owner Walter A. Brown, who gave him a high $24,000 rookie contract, just $1,000 shy of the top earning veteran Bob Cousy.[49]

Monday, December 27, 2010

For 20 years, I’ve been chronicling the race war being waged on white America. If I am to continue writing dispatches from the race war now over 50 years in progress, I must feed my family, as well as feeding the folks at the electric company, etc. That is why I am asking you to please make a generous donation, via the PayPal “donate” button above, so that I may continue working over 60 hours a week as a journalist, social scientist, and blogger, and continue telling this story.

I am humbled by the generosity of those readers who have already contributed.

Twelve days ago, the Wichita Eagle had an article on the 10th anniversary of what has been called the “Wichita Horror,” or the “Wichita Massacre,” which took place in the early hours of December 15, 2000 in Wichita, Kansas. The article has several links to information that came out during the trial. It is not easy reading.

The victims were Jason Befort, Brad Heyka, Aaron Sander, and Heather Muller. The killers were Reginald and Jonathan Carr. There was one survivor, the girlfriend of Befort, who has been called “H.G.” in media accounts. She provided critical testimony.

The Wichita Horror murder house being combed over by police in December, 2000.

On December 7, 2000, Andrew Schreiber was carjacked at gunpoint and forced to withdraw money from ATMs before being released unharmed. The tires of his car were shot.

On December 11, 2000, Ann Walenta was critically shot by the same suspects. She died of her wounds on January 2, 2001.

Bullets would tie those crimes to the same gun used to kill the four others.

The case finally comes before the Kansas Supreme Court next month. This court has overturned every death sentence since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1994.

No one has been executed in Kansas since 1965. The last were the two killers of the Clutter family in 1959, the subject of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

Racist rapist-murderers Jonathan and Reginald Carr.

The Carrs’ appellate lawyers are arguing that the brothers should have been tried separately instead of together and that the brother who didn’t do the shooting shouldn’t face death. They claim that the testimony of the surviving woman was that the shots came one after another, indicating only one shooter. Jonathan Carr, his lawyer argues, “watched his brother kill the four victims,” according to the briefs.

The judge in the Wichita trial rejected the defense request for a jury from outside Wichita. This will likely be in the appeal.

Ballistics consultant Richard Ernest testifying at the Carrs' trial.

Judge Baumgartner, who presided over the Knoxville Horror trials, severed the case into separate trials for each suspect. This did remove a major appellate issue, along with having juries outside Knoxville for three trials.

Will the Kansas Supreme Court overturn one of the sentences? Or both of them?

Adding a touch of the surreal to the Carrs’ crimes, the Wichita Community Foundation (WCF) has instituted “The Forget Me Not Scholarship Fund,” ostensibly to remember Jason Befort, Brad Heyka, Aaron Sander and Heather Muller. The entire text of the WCF’s description of the fund follows below.

The Forget Me Not Scholarship Fund was created in 2002 for the purpose of enabling young men and women in the State of Kansas to enroll in an accredited college, university, seminary, junior college or vocational technical college in the United States. Two scholarships are awarded annually: (1) to a high school senior graduating from an accredited high school in the State of Kansas, and (2) to a high school senior graduating from high schools in Cimarron, Dodge City, Pratt, Bishop Carroll (Wichita) and Kapaun/Mount Carmel (Wichita).

In September 2001, over 2,000 people participated in a commemorative race honoring the lives of Jason Befort, Heather Muller, Bradley Heyka and Aaron Sander, who died tragically on Dec. 15, 2000. The funds raised through this race form the basis of these continuing scholarship awards.

In his 26 years of life, Jason Befort gave it all he had. His determination was admirable and his love was genuine. He worked hard, he played hard and was intense in all aspects of his life. Jason was never without a smile or hello.

Competitive in sports, he was a perfectionist in every way. His loves included his family, his friends, the Cubs, the K-State Wildcats and life. They say you have to love yourself to pass it on. Jason did both.

Brad Heyka had a sincere love for life including his family and friends. His passion for life was catching and he enjoyed bringing people together and bringing out the best in them. Through this quiet leadership role he had attracted many new friendships in an ever-growing circle. His sense of humor should not be forgotten - it was contagious. His quick wit instantly brought a smile to your face. His passions included golf, KSU sports, competition, fairness, the desire to excel and concern for others.

Heather Muller was filled with a love for God, a love for life, and a love for children- especially her “teenies” with special needs. She had a rare talent for singing that she shared with all. Her prayer-filled life was a life of service to others of all ages and backgrounds. Heather impacted hundreds of people throughout her life and will continue to do so.

Aaron Sander graduated from high school in Cimarron, where his body now rests, before going to Wichita to earn a degree in finance from WSU. He spent the following six years working in the field of finance before taking the last six months of his life to discern a vocation in the priesthood. Aaron was a kind, gentle man, full of love and peace. He had a special charm that attracted many because he genuinely cared for those he met. He had a passion to learn and find his purpose in life, because he knew it was to serve God’s people.

Click here to apply online. Please mail a signed “hard copy” of your application, together with required attachments to the Foundation office at the address listed in the front of the Scholarship section.

Award notices will be posted on our website no later than May 15th.

“…who died tragically on Dec. 15, 2000.” A reader who didn’t know the real story would probably think that the four unfortunate young people had died in a car crash or a fire.

The Catholic school where Heather Muller was a pre-K teacher, St. Thomas Aquinas, has instituted the “Heather Muller Love of Faith Award,” but likewise failed to explain the circumstances that inspired the award.

And while Wikipedia, or as I call it, The Pretend Encyclopedia, has an entry on the Carr brothers' crimes, censors have vigilantly deleted pictures of the respective victims and perpetrators, whenever an editor has posted them. One censor made the following complaint on the entry's talk page:

Black Profiling on this pagethe first thing you see when you come to this page is two BLACK men. this is misleading because it makes people think that ALL blacks commit massacres. pleas fix the page with a better picture that doesnt make people thing black people commit massacres.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.24.236.113 (talk • contribs)

And the misconduct of the Kansas Supreme Court clearly has nothing to do with the Kansas State Constitution, and everything to do with the personal political prejudices and contempt for the law of the people who have dominated that judicial body. Peter Brimelow’s call for impeaching outlaw judges is particularly germane here.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Ideally, you have a thingamajig to pipe these videos into your TV screen, and can settle back on your living room couch with blankets, cozy with your loved ones, with mugs of hot chocolate or real egg nog within reach. Or maybe you’re like me, sitting in front of a little computer screen, with a kid almost as big as you are sitting on your lap, cutting off the circulation to your thigh. (I can no longer imagine not having a kid sitting on my lap, cutting off the circulation to my thigh, no matter how big he gets!)

Whatever your station, I hope that you can put your cares away for as long as you watch these videos. The lyrics follow each song.

The concert’s first act consists of popular, modern Christmas songs; the second of traditional, religious songs.

It's the holiday season,And Santa Claus is coming back,The Christmas snow is white on the ground,When old Santa gets into town,He'll be coming down the chimney, down,Coming down the chimney, down.

It's the holiday season,And Santa Claus has got a toy,For every good girl and good little boy,He's a great big bundle of joy,He'll be coming down the chimney, down,Coming down the chimney, down.

He'll have a big fat pack upon his back,And lots of goodies for you and me,So leave a peppermint stick for old St. Nick,Hanging on the Christmas tree.

It's the holiday season,With the whoop-de-do and hickory dock,And don't forget to hang up your sock,‘Cause just exactly at 12 o'clock,He'll be coming down the chimney,Coming down the chimney,Coming down the chimney, down!

It's the most wonderful time of the year,With the kids jingle-belling,And everyone telling you,Be of good cheer,It's the most wonderful time of the year.

It's the hap-happiest season of all,With those holiday greetings,And great happy meetings,When friends come to call,It's the hap-happiest season of all.

There'll be parties for hosting,Marshmallows for roasting,And caroling out in the snow,There'll be scary ghost stories,And tales of the glories,Of Christmases long, long ago,

It's the most wonderful time of the year,There be much mistletoe-ing,And hearts will be glowing,When loved ones are near,It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Woah, there'll be parties for hosting,Marshmallows for roasting,And caroling out in the snow,There'll be scary ghost stories,And tales of the glories,Of Christmases long, long ago.

It's the most wonderful time of the year,There be much mistletoe-ing,And hearts will be glowing,When loved ones are near,It's the most wonderful time,It's the most wonderful time,It's the most wonderful time of the year.

(To those who may ask what this song has to do with Christmas: All I know is that when I was a wee lad, it wasn’t Christmas, until you heard Ella Logan (also here) of the original, 1947 Broadway cast singing “How are Things in Glocca Morra?” on a Christmas special, or on the Ed Sullivan Show.)

How are things in Glocca Morra?Music by Burton LaneLyrics by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg

How are things in Glocca Morra?Is that little brook still leaping there?Does it still run down to Donny cove?Through Killybegs, Kilkerry, and Kildare?

How are things in Glocca Morra?Is that willow tree still weeping there?Does that laddie with the twinklin' eyeCome whistlin' by,And does he walk away,Sad and dreamy there, not to see me there?

So I ask each weepin' willow,And each brook along the way,And each lad that comes a-whistlin,'Tooralay.

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks,Dressed in holiday style,In the air there's a feelingOf Christmas,Children laughing, people passing,Meeting smile after smile,And on every street corner you'll hear.

Silver bells,Silver bells,It's Christmas time in the city,Ring-a-ling,Hear them ring,Soon it will be Christmas Day.

Strings of streetlights, even stoplights,Blink of bright red and green,As the shoppers rush home with their treasures,Hear the snow crunch,See the kids bunch,This is Santa's big scene,And above all the bustle you'll hear.

Silver bells,Silver bells,It's Christmas time in the city,Ring-a-ling, hear them ring,Soon it will be Christmas Day,Soon it will be Christmas Day.

Said the night wind to the little lamb,"Do you see what I see?Way up in the sky, little lamb,Do you see what I see?A star, a star, dancing in the night,With a tail as big as a kite,With a tail as big as a kite."

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,"Do you hear what I hear?Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,Do you hear what I hear?A song, a song, high above the trees,With a voice as big as the sea,With a voice as big as the sea."

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,"Do you know what I know?In your palace warm, mighty king,Do you know what I know?A child, a child shivers in the cold—Let us bring him silver and gold,Let us bring him silver and gold."

Said the king to the people everywhere,"Listen to what I say!Pray for peace, people, everywhere,Listen to what I say!The child, the child sleeping in the night,He will bring us goodness and light,He will bring us goodness and light."

Here we come a-caroling among the leaves so green,Here we come a-wand'ring so fair to be seen,Love and joy come to you,And to you glad Christmas too,And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year,And God send you a Happy New Year.

We are not daily beggars that beg from door to door,But we are neighbors' children whom you have seen before,Love and joy come to you,And to you glad Christmas too,And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year,And God send you a Happy New Year.

God bless the master of this house, likewise the mistress too,And all the little children that round the table go,Love and joy come to you,And to you glad Christmas, too,And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year,And God send you a Happy New Year.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas,We wish you a Merry Christmas,We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,Good tidings we bring to you and your kin,Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer.

We won't go until we get some,We won't go until we get some,We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here.

We wish you a Merry Christmas,We wish you a Merry Christmas,We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King!Peace on earth and mercy mild,God and sinners reconciled,"Joyful, all ye nations rise,Join the triumph of the skies,With the angelic host proclaim, "Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

Christ by highest heaven adored,Christ the everlasting Lord!Late in time behold Him come,Offspring of a Virgin's womb,Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,Hail the incarnate Deity,Pleased as man with man to dwell,Jesus, our Emmanuel!

Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King!Peace on earth and mercy mild,God and sinners reconciled,"Joyful, all ye nations rise,Join the triumph of the skies,With the angelic host proclaim, "Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!Hail the Son of Righteousness!Light and life to all He brings, Ris'n with healing in His wings,Mild He lays His glory by,Born that man no more may die,Born to raise the sons of earth;Born to give them second birth.

Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King!Peace on earth and mercy mild,God and sinners reconciled,"Joyful, all ye nations rise,Join the triumph of the skies,With the angelic host proclaim, "Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

It Came Upon A Midnight ClearEdmund Hamilton Sears

It came upon the midnight clear,That glorious song of old,From angels bending near the earth,To touch their harps of gold:"Peace on the earth, goodwill to menFrom heavens all gracious King!"The world in solemn stillness lay,To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,With peaceful wings unfurled,And still their heavenly music floats,O'er all the weary world:Above its sad and lowly plains,They bend on hovering wing,And ever o'er its Babel sounds,The blessed angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,By prophets seen of old,When with the ever-circling years,Shall come the time foretold,When the new heaven and earth shall own,The Prince of Peace, their King,And the whole world send back the song,Which now the angels sing.

(Yes, the video looks awful, and the mike needed to be closer, but bear with it. The soprano sings like an angel and, as Maureen Hegarty and Barbra Streisand's versions make all too clear, this song requires a soprano.)

I Wonder While I Wander

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,How Jesus the Savior did come for to die,For poor on'ry people like you and like I,I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall,With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all,But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall,And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,A star in the sky or a bird on the wing,Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing,He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,How Jesus the Savior did come for to die,For poor on'ry people like you and like I,I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

O little town of Bethlehem,How still we see thee lie,Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,The silent stars go by,Yet in thy dark streets shineth,The everlasting light,The hopes and fears of all the years,Are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary,And gathered all above,While mortals sleep, the angels keep,Their watch of wondering love,O morning stars together,Proclaim the holy birth,And praises sing to God the King,And peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently,The wondrous gift is given!So God imparts to human hearts,The blessings of His heaven,No ear may hear His coming,But in this world of sin,Where meek souls will receive him still,The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,Descend to us, we pray,Cast out our sin and enter in,Be born to us today,We hear the Christmas angels,The great glad tidings tell,O come to us, abide with us,Our Lord Emmanuel.

O Sing, choirs of angels,Sing in exultation,Sing all that hear in heaven God's holy word.Give to our Father glory in the Highest;O come, let us adore Him,O come, let us adore Him,O come, let us adore Him,Christ the Lord.

All Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,Born this happy morning,O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;O come, let us adore Him,O come, let us adore Him,O come, let us adore Him,Christ the Lord.

Ave Maria! stainless styled!Foul demons of the earth and air,From this their wonted haunt exiled,Shall flee before thy presence fair.We bow us to our lot of care,Beneath thy guidance reconciled;Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer,And for a father hear a child!Ave Maria!Ave Maria

God rest ye merry, gentlemenLet nothing you dismayRemember, Christ, our SaviourWas born on Christmas dayTo save us all from Satan's powerWhen we were gone astrayO tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

In Bethlehem, in Israel,This blessed Babe was bornAnd laid within a mangerUpon this blessed mornThe which His Mother MaryDid nothing take in scornO tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

From God our Heavenly FatherA blessed Angel came;And unto certain ShepherdsBrought tidings of the same:How that in Bethlehem was bornThe Son of God by Name.O tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

"Fear not then," said the Angel,"Let nothing you affright,This day is born a SaviourOf a pure Virgin bright,To free all those who trust in HimFrom Satan's power and might."O tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

The shepherds at those tidingsRejoiced much in mind,And left their flocks a-feedingIn tempest, storm and wind:And went to Bethlehem straightwayThe Son of God to find.O tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

And when they came to BethlehemWhere our dear Saviour lay,They found Him in a manger,Where oxen feed on hay;His Mother Mary kneeling down,Unto the Lord did pray.O tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,All you within this place,And with true love and brotherhoodEach other now embrace;This holy tide of ChristmasAll other doth deface.O tidings of comfort and joy,Comfort and joyO tidings of comfort and joy

Good King Wenceslas looked outOn the feast of StephenWhen the snow lay round aboutDeep and crisp and evenBrightly shone the moon that nightThough the frost was cruelWhen a poor man came in sightGath'ring winter fuel

"Hither, page, and stand by meIf thou know'st it, tellingYonder peasant, who is he?Where and what his dwelling?""Sire, he lives a good league henceUnderneath the mountainRight against the forest fenceBy Saint Agnes' fountain."

"Bring me flesh and bring me wineBring me pine logs hitherThou and I will see him dineWhen we bear him thither."Page and monarch forth they wentForth they went togetherThrough the rude wind's wild lamentAnd the bitter weather

"Sire, the night is darker nowAnd the wind blows strongerFails my heart, I know not how,I can go no longer.""Mark my footsteps, my good pageTread thou in them boldlyThou shalt find the winter's rageFreeze thy blood less coldly."

In his master's steps he trodWhere the snow lay dintedHeat was in the very sodWhich the Saint had printedTherefore, Christian men, be sureWealth or rank possessingYe who now will bless the poorShall yourselves find blessing

On the first day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,A partridge in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fifth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the sixth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the eighth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the ninth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the tenth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, My true love sent to me,Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree!

The First Noel, the Angels did say,Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay,In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,On a cold winter's night that was so deep,Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,Born is the King of Israel!

They looked up and saw a star,Shining in the East beyond them far,And to the earth it gave great light,And so it continued both day and night,Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,Born is the King of Israel!

And by the light of that same star,Three Wise men came from country far,To seek for a King was their intent,And to follow the star wherever it went,Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,Born is the King of Israel!

This star drew nigh to the northwest,O'er Bethlehem it took its rest,And there it did both pause and stay,Right o'er the place where Jesus lay,Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,Born is the King of Israel!

Then entered in those wise men three,Full reverently upon their knee,And offered there in His presence,Their gold and myrrh and frankincense,Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,Born is the King of Israel!

Then let us all with one accord,Sing praises to our heavenly Lord,That hath made Heaven and earth of nought,And with his blood mankind has bought,Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,Born is the King of Israel!

About Me

I am a dissident journalist, whose work has been published in dozens of daily newspapers, magazines, and journals in English, German, and Swedish, under my own name and many pseudonyms. While living in internal exile in New York, where I am whitelisted, I maintain NSU/The Wyatt Earp Journalism Bureau and some eight other blogs (some are distinctive but occasional venues, while others are mirrors), and also write for stout-hearted men such as Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor. Please hit the “Donate” button on your way out. Thanks, in advance.
Follow my tweets at @NicholasStix.

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